Page 85 of Over the Emerald Valley
“One other. A Nubian woman. So old her hair is nearly white, and her skin is wrinkled like a prune, yet her beauty remains. She’s come twice. She never spoke to us, only to him.”
“What did they talk about?”
“Emeralds. Always emeralds. She demanded more and bigger, faster. He would say, ‘Yes, of course, take all you need,’ then ask to leave with her. But she insisted he stay. It was the same conversation both visits.”
Maybe they shouldn’t look for this woman after all. The last thing Solon wanted was orders to stay in Sikait.
“I hate to ask,” said Temaj. “But how much blood did he take from you and how often? The more we know, the better prepared we’ll be to endure without endangering others.”
“He alternated between us and never took so much we didn’t recover in a day or two, but…”
When Amunet trailed off, Femi took over. “We lived in fear each time would be the last. What if he lost control? What if we angered him? What if he grew tired of us? We knew too much. He could never let us go, but it would be so easy for him to kill us.”
Their muffled footsteps rang loud in Solon’s sensitive ears.
“I’m sorry,” said Temaj, his voice low and gentle. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you. I wish I didn’t have to press you for more, but can you say how often he needed to drink?”
“Two or three times a week. Once, he went an entire week without drinking from us at all. I think he was testing his limits.”
“That’s very helpful to know. Thank you. Can you think of anything else?”
“He always licked where he’d bitten,” said Amunet. “It healed the flesh. Our wounds never festered.”
“He slept like the dead,” said Femi. “We were often allowed the use of all three rooms, since we had no chance of escaping on our own. It was nearly impossible to wake him. We had to try once, and it took both of us shaking him, and even then, he could hardly keep his eyes open.”
Once they’d begun talking, the information flowed like the river, flowed like Solon’s gratitude for Temaj. Clever Temaj, who thought to ask all the right questions.
Amunet gasped as if she’d remembered something important. “He could move the earth, just by wanting the earth to move.”
Solon stopped. This he had to hear without worrying about which turn to take next.
“What do you mean?” asked Temaj.
“There’s always a pit in our room for…” Amunet waved her hand. “You know.”
“Yes, I get what you mean,” said Temaj.
“He could stand over it and just ‘think’ it closed. And he could make a new one in mere minutes without getting a speck of dirt on his precious robes. He just sank into the earth and back out again without even trying.”
Could Solon do that? Could Temaj? They would need to try. Such a trick could come in handy when they had to escape the sun on their journey.
“Thank you. That’s very useful. Could I ask one more favor before we part?”
The sisters shared a cautious glance. “What?” they said in unison.
“I won’t ask you to lie, but only Ottah, the guard with the crooked nose, and Neku, the soldier in charge, know that we’re alive. We’d like to keep it that way. We aren’t staying here. We’ll be no threat to anyone. We just want to leave in peace.”
“You want us to keep quiet?”
“No, no. Say what you will. You’ve experienced an ordeal I can’t even fathom. No doubt you’ll need to speak of it to heal. But if you could leave us out of the telling, at least our names and descriptions, we would be grateful.”
Amunet watched her sister. When Femi nodded, she spit into her hand and offered it to Temaj.
Temaj did the same, and they grasped wrists. “Thank you. If you want to make a couple of wonderful friends, you can’t go wrong with Seli and Met from the harem. I’ll miss them dearly. I do already. I can’t speak of them further, or I’ll surely cry.”
Solon waited for them to grow quiet. Then he added his thanks. “We’ll need to be silent from here on out. We’re quite close to the surface where we must part. Temaj and I will head south toward the exit, and you must go north to the main hall. That is where you’ll find help. Ask whoever you find for Ottah or Neku.”
The women nodded, faces solemn. Temaj looked as if he’d burst into tears any second. Solon wanted to hold him. To tell him it would be all right.
